Suspected al Qaida-linked militants raided a village in the southern Philippines early on Saturday, killing 11 people in the country's worst militant attack on civilians in nine years.

A Philippine official says a 5-year-old girl was killed and 4,000 people were left homeless in a fire that razed a squatters' colony near the main port in the capital.

A passenger ferry sank in the northern Philippines in a second sea disaster in three days. Six bodies, including three children, were recovered and at least 22 people were missing on Sunday.

Forty-six passengers and crew of the wooden-hulled ferry MV Catalyn B were plucked from the water and brought to the coast guard's Manila headquarters, said coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo.

The Philippines' most active volcano could have a huge eruption within days, officials warned on Sunday after detecting a drastic surge in earthquakes and eerie rumbling sounds in surrounding foothills. Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated as a precaution.